ATHENS – In an effort to earn hard currency for repaying his country’s national debt, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has spent the past month moonlighting as a burlesque dancer at an Athens nightclub.
Local papers reported Tsipras’ employment at The Randy Satyr, a club in Athens’ seedy Omonia Square neighborhood where the prime minister has taken a 10:00-3:00 shift. Confirmation comes after weeks of speculation about Tsipras’ evasive behavior.
“Alexis kept running out of our late night cabinet meetings. He would get really fidgety and was always glancing at his watch. When 9:30 rolled around, he would get up and say, ‘Don’t worry about me, I just really need to be somewhere. You guys are doing a great job, I think you can take it from here,’” Minister of Health and Social Security Panagiotis Kouroumplis said.
According to Tsipras, everything he earns in wages and tips dancing at The Satyr is used to service Greece’s national debt. Since his radical left Syriza party swept to power in January, Greece has played a dangerous came of brinksmanship with its “troika” of creditors. With a nearly €1 billion payment due this month, Athens has already resorted to demanding that local governments deposit all their excess cash in the central bank.
“The troika think they can impose further austerity upon us. They think Greece will have no choice but to accept their bailout terms,” Tsipras told reporters from onstage as he twirled two tassels adhered to his nipples. “But they are wrong! Every tip a gentleman leaves me brings us a few euros closer to breaking free of their yoke.”
Tspiras’ confidence may be premature. All told, he estimates that he has brought in around €3,948.22 over the past month. Given Greece’s total debt burden, analysts estimate that should buy the country an extra three seconds before default. Greek bond yields spiked to new highs on news of the prime minister’s side job.
“It’s all the Germans’ fault!” Tsipras complained, tears smearing the heavy layer of mascara on his eyes. “Every single German tourist that comes in here is the stingiest tipper!”
Yet while not enough to prevent Greek insolvency, the prime minister’s side job may have paid other dividends. Tsipras recounts one evening when his finance minster, Yanis Varoufakis, unexpectedly strolled into The Satyr. Known as much for his leather jackets and fondness for motorcycles as for exasperating other Eurozone finance ministers, Varoufakis was accompanied to the club by his wife and two women who were reputedly prostitutes.
“I saw Yanis sitting in the audience drinking one of our ‘satyr-day specials’ [a shot of ouzo in goat’s milk],” Tsipras recalls. “He didn’t recognize me, but he was clearly enjoying the show.”
When an appreciative Varoufakis rose to slip a €20 note into Tsipras’ strap, the prime minister slapped him and chewed him out on stage.
“He clearly had not expected to find his boss working in the club,” Tsipras said, “I told him to go home, wash the oil and body glitter off of himself, and get his ass to the bailout negotiations he was supposed to be attending in Germany.”
A further round of bailout negotiations to be completed this month will decide Greece’s ultimate fate as a member of the Eurozone. Should these talks collapse, Tsipras says he has already reached out to his manager about taking on a second shift as a lounge singer.